You're writing always sparks an idea or two I haven't thought about in many years.
I'm a Designer by trade - anything that involves moving media around to communicate ideas. I had good mentors along the way that have helped me to be better in my craft, no matter if it's print/digital or redesigning our landscaping (design-thinking is pervasive for me). I can't help but not see how something could be improved. A blessing, and a curse in some circumstances.
Years ago, I attend a design conference where two people from a well-known East Coast design agency basically did a take-down of the industry and what it meant to be a, uh, captial "D" designer. It sparked a ton of communications and attempted to lift those responible for designing 'stuff' into a new realm of thinking: design is everything. It's how people interact with your product and/or process and without it, nothing happens. I've tried explaining this to people when asked what I do for a living. Some get it, but most think I just make things "more pretty". Sigh.
This took on a "style vs design" conversation which went a long way to describe the way in which effective design could, and maybe should, change the world. I tend to research things to the nth degree and find that it informs my design and enables me to continue my 'education' of everything I can wrap my head around. The more I know about what I'm designing, the better it will be. Form follows function to a great degree...and some things are 'art', but I'm not an artist even when some folks think that's what I do as well. I think your quest is in a similar fashion (no pun intended), where we're trying to keep the humanity in what we do and seeing human hands in the effort.
Your topic also made me think of Supertramp's "Logical Song". It would probably resonate with you.
Thanks for your thoughts, writings and the pursuit of truth and knowledge using discernment in all it's beauty.
> What is missing is the ineffable — what Hindu aesthetic theory calls rasa, the deep pleasure and nourishment that comes from emotional evocation in art and literature. Extrapolated beyond art, rasa is the human experience of beauty, mystery, and inner life itself.
I'm an English major, and I understand the ridicule aimed at the liberal arts; I routinely make jokes at the expense of my degree. The true tragedy is it doesn't have to be this way. I really appreciated your deep dive on this matter - it is the argument I've been trying to make and didn't know how to.
I had some amazing classes and professors, I also had worthless ones. The latter always frustrated me because of the source material they made us go over. We turned away from what makes the liberal arts valuable and instead wasted time and energy on topics that contributed nothing to society other than brain rot and aggravation. And now those same professors wonder why no one takes them seriously.
This is the beauty and tragedy of the humanities. I received a gift of knowledge that’s informing my work to this day from the religion, history and anthropology departments, but the material I was exposed to I’ve now realized refuses to see the world as it is, and pattern recognition was especially discouraged when I got to grad school because of the distrust for grand narratives.
Very true! Nowadays it seems like a college degree in general does not translate to finding a job. This situation makes me whether Gen Z will bother with college at all, and if vocational training programs are going to become more popular.
The thing is we shouldn’t be thinking of college as vocational in the first place or try to translate it to a job. Anyone can learn to code but only the humanities and social sciences teach you to assess human society and behavior.
Another was "You maximize what you measure." If having more reports on reports in your inbox gets promotions, we shut the company down making more inbox reports. ...And have.
A third is a Dilbert Cartoon mentioning this.
"Wouldn't all the data for the decision-makers just be wrong then?"
I have long felt like for decades that specialization has deformed the humanities. In my own field, for example, if you want to be a professor, you have to be hyper specialized. I for example specialized in British modernism. When I was looking for a job in that field, I could not apply for a job and let’s say American modernism. Because I wasn’t considered qualified. I certainly could not have applied for a job and say 19th century British literature, despite having a secondary interest in that unless I published specialized articles in that field. By the 1970s, the idea of a generalist was considered quaint, and by the 90s it simply didn’t exist. And even within specialties, people hyper specialize. Sometimes on authors, sometimes on theories. But all of this specialization, I would argue, deforms the study of literature.
Part of the argument for a true Liberal education is that it enables you to be trainable for almost any job; between the idea of not having to train people as an employer and well..... most of us are too stupid to perform under such a system, here we are.
On this note, even an Atlantic article I read this morning about the difficulties CS majors now have getting jobs, a professor said you’re better off majoring in the humanities to develop a broad range of knowledge. Maybe the tide will turn, but not until we insist on degree requirements.
When I was in college, an older man asked me what I was majoring in. I replied “The Humanities.” He was quiet for a while then said, “You will never make a lot of money but you will have an interesting life.” He was right. I have had a very interesting life. Although I have not made a ton of money, I’ve made enough and have never struggled. If I could do it over, I would not change my major. Never
I love this. And same, I wouldn’t trade it for anything even though I did hate where it kept me because my career started kinda late due to the forces I wrote about. But now, I have the language and background to keep reading in those areas and interrogating why things are how they are. My life is so much richer for it. We need more people to see that their lives are poor without philosophy.
What a Sunday! Coffee, a swim, and a new Anuradha essay. I'm doing some reading into the feminization of publishing and humanities education right now. The selecting out of masculine and non-progressive voices in the world of literature and fiction gets a lot less attention than this same process in films/shows and video games...
...but I believe that literature/fiction ultimately might be the most consequential of them all.
Erecting an orthodoxy which covers an entire field or range of institutions must ultimately be self-defeating (unless a huge amount of institutional power and probably coercion are brought to bear) in our society. Insurgent voices will simply migrate elsewhere, and found their own book clubs and create routes to publish online. They'll establish their own book prizes. They won't stop reading or writing. If the appetite is out there, then it will be satisfied. The humanities is supposed to reflect the deepest aspects of human existence. By constraining and perverting it the true believers have simply guaranteed their own slow irrelevance. Granted, this will probably take decades (as it will with social science). But the need is there. It's not going away. We must understand society, and we must have written art that reflects the beauty and pain of being a human. We must. No ideological or status-centered substitute will suffice. Most people can recognize the distinctions... even most of the elites who produce and consume the ersatz products. I suspect that's part of the reason that they're so defensive and cliqueish. If they really believed in the superiority of their values and their products they would welcome dissenters and oddballs, knowing that their works would shine in comparison. But their strategy is rather the opposite. It's pretty telling, I'd say...
These particular ones I think are more problematic because of their control over knowledge. I also recall reading that computer programmers were low status too. The question is what gender had to do with it.
It is true that anyone can learn to code but it’s another thing entirely to know how to apply the things you learn to the problem at hand. But yeah that sort of thing is idiotic.
You're writing always sparks an idea or two I haven't thought about in many years.
I'm a Designer by trade - anything that involves moving media around to communicate ideas. I had good mentors along the way that have helped me to be better in my craft, no matter if it's print/digital or redesigning our landscaping (design-thinking is pervasive for me). I can't help but not see how something could be improved. A blessing, and a curse in some circumstances.
Years ago, I attend a design conference where two people from a well-known East Coast design agency basically did a take-down of the industry and what it meant to be a, uh, captial "D" designer. It sparked a ton of communications and attempted to lift those responible for designing 'stuff' into a new realm of thinking: design is everything. It's how people interact with your product and/or process and without it, nothing happens. I've tried explaining this to people when asked what I do for a living. Some get it, but most think I just make things "more pretty". Sigh.
This took on a "style vs design" conversation which went a long way to describe the way in which effective design could, and maybe should, change the world. I tend to research things to the nth degree and find that it informs my design and enables me to continue my 'education' of everything I can wrap my head around. The more I know about what I'm designing, the better it will be. Form follows function to a great degree...and some things are 'art', but I'm not an artist even when some folks think that's what I do as well. I think your quest is in a similar fashion (no pun intended), where we're trying to keep the humanity in what we do and seeing human hands in the effort.
Your topic also made me think of Supertramp's "Logical Song". It would probably resonate with you.
Thanks for your thoughts, writings and the pursuit of truth and knowledge using discernment in all it's beauty.
Well written!
> What is missing is the ineffable — what Hindu aesthetic theory calls rasa, the deep pleasure and nourishment that comes from emotional evocation in art and literature. Extrapolated beyond art, rasa is the human experience of beauty, mystery, and inner life itself.
I call this the *controlled chaos* meta-pattern, if anyone's interested in abstract synthesis: https://jakehpark.substack.com/p/controlled-chaos-generative-rupture
Byung-Chul Han talks about this in The Agony of Eros and Saving Beauty.
I'm an English major, and I understand the ridicule aimed at the liberal arts; I routinely make jokes at the expense of my degree. The true tragedy is it doesn't have to be this way. I really appreciated your deep dive on this matter - it is the argument I've been trying to make and didn't know how to.
I had some amazing classes and professors, I also had worthless ones. The latter always frustrated me because of the source material they made us go over. We turned away from what makes the liberal arts valuable and instead wasted time and energy on topics that contributed nothing to society other than brain rot and aggravation. And now those same professors wonder why no one takes them seriously.
This is the beauty and tragedy of the humanities. I received a gift of knowledge that’s informing my work to this day from the religion, history and anthropology departments, but the material I was exposed to I’ve now realized refuses to see the world as it is, and pattern recognition was especially discouraged when I got to grad school because of the distrust for grand narratives.
Very true! Nowadays it seems like a college degree in general does not translate to finding a job. This situation makes me whether Gen Z will bother with college at all, and if vocational training programs are going to become more popular.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/business/long-term-unemployment-college-grads.html
The thing is we shouldn’t be thinking of college as vocational in the first place or try to translate it to a job. Anyone can learn to code but only the humanities and social sciences teach you to assess human society and behavior.
That's a good point!
Or as they say "Spreadsheet digit go up".
Another was "You maximize what you measure." If having more reports on reports in your inbox gets promotions, we shut the company down making more inbox reports. ...And have.
A third is a Dilbert Cartoon mentioning this.
"Wouldn't all the data for the decision-makers just be wrong then?"
"Yeah, let's pretend that matters."
It’s depressing how accurate this is. Much of my time is spent getting people out of spreadsheets and teaching them what to actually measure.
I have long felt like for decades that specialization has deformed the humanities. In my own field, for example, if you want to be a professor, you have to be hyper specialized. I for example specialized in British modernism. When I was looking for a job in that field, I could not apply for a job and let’s say American modernism. Because I wasn’t considered qualified. I certainly could not have applied for a job and say 19th century British literature, despite having a secondary interest in that unless I published specialized articles in that field. By the 1970s, the idea of a generalist was considered quaint, and by the 90s it simply didn’t exist. And even within specialties, people hyper specialize. Sometimes on authors, sometimes on theories. But all of this specialization, I would argue, deforms the study of literature.
Part of the argument for a true Liberal education is that it enables you to be trainable for almost any job; between the idea of not having to train people as an employer and well..... most of us are too stupid to perform under such a system, here we are.
On this note, even an Atlantic article I read this morning about the difficulties CS majors now have getting jobs, a professor said you’re better off majoring in the humanities to develop a broad range of knowledge. Maybe the tide will turn, but not until we insist on degree requirements.
When I was in college, an older man asked me what I was majoring in. I replied “The Humanities.” He was quiet for a while then said, “You will never make a lot of money but you will have an interesting life.” He was right. I have had a very interesting life. Although I have not made a ton of money, I’ve made enough and have never struggled. If I could do it over, I would not change my major. Never
eating psychedelic mushrooms also guarantees you have an interesting life.
Without a doubt
I love this. And same, I wouldn’t trade it for anything even though I did hate where it kept me because my career started kinda late due to the forces I wrote about. But now, I have the language and background to keep reading in those areas and interrogating why things are how they are. My life is so much richer for it. We need more people to see that their lives are poor without philosophy.
What a Sunday! Coffee, a swim, and a new Anuradha essay. I'm doing some reading into the feminization of publishing and humanities education right now. The selecting out of masculine and non-progressive voices in the world of literature and fiction gets a lot less attention than this same process in films/shows and video games...
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/why-wont-hollywood-give-us-what-we
...but I believe that literature/fiction ultimately might be the most consequential of them all.
Erecting an orthodoxy which covers an entire field or range of institutions must ultimately be self-defeating (unless a huge amount of institutional power and probably coercion are brought to bear) in our society. Insurgent voices will simply migrate elsewhere, and found their own book clubs and create routes to publish online. They'll establish their own book prizes. They won't stop reading or writing. If the appetite is out there, then it will be satisfied. The humanities is supposed to reflect the deepest aspects of human existence. By constraining and perverting it the true believers have simply guaranteed their own slow irrelevance. Granted, this will probably take decades (as it will with social science). But the need is there. It's not going away. We must understand society, and we must have written art that reflects the beauty and pain of being a human. We must. No ideological or status-centered substitute will suffice. Most people can recognize the distinctions... even most of the elites who produce and consume the ersatz products. I suspect that's part of the reason that they're so defensive and cliqueish. If they really believed in the superiority of their values and their products they would welcome dissenters and oddballs, knowing that their works would shine in comparison. But their strategy is rather the opposite. It's pretty telling, I'd say...
1. All systems that survive eventually are ruled over by sociopaths. That said, sociopaths do like attractive lovers to stock their beds.
2. At one time, engineering was seen as a low-prestige degree, a glorified mechanic.
These particular ones I think are more problematic because of their control over knowledge. I also recall reading that computer programmers were low status too. The question is what gender had to do with it.
Then again, a programmer human that I know suggested I become a programmer. "It only you takes a couple of days to learn!"
No, dumbass, it take *you* a couple of days to learn.
It is true that anyone can learn to code but it’s another thing entirely to know how to apply the things you learn to the problem at hand. But yeah that sort of thing is idiotic.
Well, this human had a patent portfolio by the time he was kicked out of high school.
Damn that’s crazily impressive…but you were kicked out??
No, the "it takes a couple of days to learn to code" human was kicked out.
At one time a programmer was seen as a glorified stenographer.